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2640

Delegation of Email Management

Occasionally senior staff wish to allow another member of staff, such as a Personal Assistant, to manage their University personal email account on their behalf.  To facilitate this, the senior staff member must not divulge their email password, but instead they should use the Exchange system's account delegation facility so as to permit access by their assistant to their University email using Outlook or Outlook Web App.

Governance Office advice

The University's Governance Office has advised (February 2014) that delegated access does not constitute a Data Protection Act issue where members of staff need to see personal data required by their role.  However, it further advises that delegation should not be considered by those in sensitive roles that involve a high level of correspondence about sensitive personal information (for example, Directors of Student Experience).

What applications to use

Please note that delegated access will only work with Outlook or Outlook Web App (OWA): a delegated account cannot be accessed with any other email application such as Thunderbird, Apple Mail etc.   Furthermore, note also that delegated access with OWA only allows access to an account's Inbox:  other folders will not be accessible.  To obtain the full benefit of delegation, the Outlook email desktop application (part of Microsoft Office) must be used.

Setting up delegated access

To set up delegated access to an email account, two steps are needed:

1. The senior member of staff (the delegator) needs to follow the instructions given in Section 7 of the Guide to Role-Based Accounts.  The instructions assume the use of a role-based account, but they can also be applied to any other account that is to have shared access.
   
   
2. The member of staff being given delegated access (the delegate) then needs to follow the instructions (in the same Guide)  to set up Outlook to access the delegated account.